Saving Lives with Smarter Technology: Personalized Guns Many gun tragedies could have been prevented by simple technologies that exist today. Personalized gun technology encompasses a broad range of manufacturing designs that allow guns to recognize an authorized user, and become inoperable when handled by anyone else. A current version can be seen in the Armatix GmbH iP1 Pistol, which communicates with a connected wristwatch via microchips. The watch’s owner enters a personal identification number to unlock the gun’s firing pin lock, and the gun can only be operated when it is located within a certain distance of the watch. The New Jersey Institute of Technology has been working on developing another form of personalized gun technology, “grip recognition,” which would recognize the palm configuration of authorized users and only operate for them.1 Research suggests that this technology would be extremely effective in preventing deaths of children and teens. A study of unintentional gun deaths in Maryland and Milwaukee County, Wisconsin found that 37 percent of the deaths would have been prevented with gun personalization technology.2 This technology would make it harder for children to commit suicide with their parents’ guns, and would render stolen guns inoperable. New Jersey passed a model law in 2002 requiring that all new handguns sold in the state include authorized user identification technology within three years of becoming available in the state and being recognized by the attorney general as complying with the definition of a personalized or childproof gun.3 At the national level, Representative John Tierney (D-MA) has taken steps to embrace the use of technology in preventing gun violence by introducing the Personalized Handgun Safety Act of 2013, which would: • Authorize National Institute of Justice grants for further development and improvement of personalized handgun technology. • Direct the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) to create a safety standard for personalized handguns that all newly manufactured handguns would be required to meet.* • Require that all U.S. manufactured handguns be personalized and comply with the CPSC standard two years after the date of enactment. • Require that any entity selling a handgun retrofit the gun with personalization technology three years after the bill is enacted. The retrofitting process would be paid for by the Department of Justice. • Hold gun manufacturers liable if their weapons do not meet CPSC standards within two years of the bill’s passage.
*If this bill were enacted this would be the first time that the CPSC would have the authority to develop safety standards related to guns as the CPSC is currently prohibited from regulating guns.
Protect Children, Not Guns 2013
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